Soundtracks are fickle friends; they give you a variety of music, but they also concomitantly force you into Hollywoodland?the land of marginalizing statistics and soulless money grubbing. Wait a minute: that sounds an awful lot like the mainstream music industry; damn, well?I suppose it?s all a shit-show and we pick our poison. What I mean to say is, the pithy content that is often offered by soundtracks is worth swallowing the bitter ?sell-out? pill that is mandatory when associating oneself with such a lucrative commodity (which is often a hard bargain for indie-music snobs). But you simply cannot deny that there is goodness to be had, and when all else fails you can fold the following recommendations into the ironical section of your hipness in order to save face, if it should come to such resorts.

?Baz Luhrman?s Romeo and Juliet

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Romeo + Juliet Heart-throbs Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio

Yes, it evokes the prepubescent mania that surrounded Leonard DiCaprio, but lest we not forget the undeniable grungily cool aesthetic associated with My So Called Life?s Claire Danes, as she was known at the time. When Baz Luhrman finalizes a project, there are no frayed edges; his movies and their associated soundtracks are smooth as marble when the general public is introduced to them, and the man has an intuition for remixing the intentions of his artistic predecessors which allows him to repackage songs, stories, and god-knows what else in ways which always?capture the pulse of the moment and enable him to captivate a wide variety of audiences. I mean, let?s face it: he is partially responsible for creating a teenage demi-god in the luscious Leo, and how exactly did he do that? He manipulated Shakespeare?s iconographic tragic love story and employed Nineties heavy hitters Garbage, Everclear, Des?ree, The Cardigans, and the grand-daddy of them all?Radiohead?to mix a potent cocktail that practically blind-sighted hormonal kids and tricked them into memorizing and reciting good old William, much to the delight of frustrated parents and English teachers the world over; I know?I was one of them (ah, precious hindsight). If you spring for Romeo + Juliet Volume 2, you get the added bonus of Nellee Hooper?s thematic instrumental genius which allows you to FULLY re-live the cinematic experience with a musical play by play that practically reconstructs the entire movie. Her music is delicate, haunting, and occasionally perforated with narrative from the film; Shakespeare never felt so relevant and sexy. In summation, buy these albums and you?ll be transported to the Nineties in all the best ways, which is an incredibly hip thing to do now-a-days. Aside from all that?s been said before, it?s just freakin? good!! Buy it, own?it, love it.

Sean Penn?s Into the Wild

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Emile Hirsh in Into the Wild

I?ve heard it said that you?re either a Nirvana or a Pearl Jam fan; I worship at the altar of Vedder. The socially aware front man of the now iconic band Pearl Jam (information I offer not to insult the intelligence of my peers, but merely to inform the youngsters), Eddie Vedder?s music is and always will be the pinnacle of a certain facet of Nineties grunge. Sean Penn parlayed his humble beginnings as Spiccoli in the cult classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High into a well respected and diverse film career that has taken him from in front of the camera to behind it, and developed an often perniciously documented rebellious social conscience which led to the now infamous pictures from Hurricane Katrina in which Penn, laden with arms in a tiny row boat, put his money where his mouth was and rescued hurricane victims when the inability of the government to do so was inescapable.

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Eddie Vedder: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Fast forward to the year 2007 when Vedder and Penn artistically fornicated for the movie Into the Wild, and you have one of the best movies and soundtracks to emerge in a very long time. The film?s achingly Thoreauvian message which emphasizes a return to the simplicity of nature and wails against the country?s tendency to desiccate its young through commodification and corporate ladders is perfectly accompanied and, in many instances, fortified by Vedder?s emphatic, urgent, and strategically uneven vocals. The soundtrack as an organically forceful unit is an accomplishment that was recognized at the Golden Globes, but it is also comprised of singles that have the ability to affect the listener regardless of cinematographic context. The song? ?Hard Sun,? (click here to see the video) which is the centerpiece of the album, features a member of Sleater-Kinney on back-up vocals and is 5:22 long; it repeats, it captures the American myth of the yeoman farmer, and it?s just damn?good. From a celebration of the hopeful American?expanse, Vedder takes us to the song ?Society? in which he laments modernity?s virulent obsession with possessions and expresses a desire to withdraw from that all consuming focus. He transitions from an isolationist emphasis to a politically subversive one? for the?song ?No More? as he urges us to unite against war, and in the song ?Here?s to the State? where he specifically burns the ruling Administration and their associated puppets in effigy. Yes, yes I?m an unabashed Vedder-head, but this is a neo-folk album that has weight due to its social import and its energizing live renditions, but also because it?s blatantly well crafted and enjoyable music; you??won?t be disappointed.

Postscript: click here to read an interview of Sean Penn and Eddie Vedder discussing the movie/soundtrack.

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